I've been asked when I release the next stable version. Sorry. I haven't been able to take time for pre-release test [s]because I spent too much time for retro RPGs[/s]. Actually YSFLIGHT grew feature-rich a lot more than I was originally expecting and it is very difficult to manually test many of these features. So, one of the effort I am doing is to automate such tests. I tried several different ways, but the latest scripting is working nicely. For example, now I can automatically select all of the Simulation menus or I can automatically select all of the default aircrafts and fields in the new-flight dialog to make sure the program does not crash. It is amazing to see my test scripts go through many test items for different versions of YSFLIGHT in a few minutes that were taking more than an hour.

I also spend some time occasionally for at least making YSFLIGHT auto-demo for iOS and Android

Okay now I have to say it. (This is NOT an attack on Soji) You can't take the time to actually test out the builds you release, which leads to more bugs being introduced into the game. So you develop scripts to test YS for you. While it's ingenious it's also incredibly lazy. Not only that but deciding to develop mobile versions of YS? You can barely handle the "workload" of the three PC versions as it is! The game has spent over twenty years in development (on and off since 1995). I understand you're a one man show but it's really becoming obvious that you just don't give a damn about it.

With the last test build you introduced textured smoke, got peoples attention too! It looked nice and all, but you introduced another bug that totally destroyed the cockpit view. With the introduction of bling that nobody really asked for instead of actually optimizing the game for the more expansive hardware you're starting to worry me. With Space Engineers fresh in my mind too, they added things nobody asked for while ignoring the problems with the game that could be fixed to make it a better experience for all.

HQ has capable coders that i'd imagine would be all too happy to take the baton and make YS something that stands out. We don't need textured smoke, better shadows, or heaven forbid light bloom if that's ever introduced. What we NEED is to see this game turn from a mess of garbled code into the iconic game that it used to be. We've had twenty years of sitting back and asking, it's time you let the community take the reigns.

I honestly apologize if this post sounded rude, it's just been boiling up inside for a while and I had to get it out.

F6 and F8? Why not F6 and F9? F7 and F8 have recently been different outside view settings (fixed heading relative to the map vs fixed relative to the plane). Will we lose one of those to regain what was F9? Will we be able to reassign tower view to F9 and restore F6/7/8/9 to proper views?

EDIT: If we lose Fixed relative to the plane outside view, that will basically be the breaking point for me. I will not even try to adapt to losing that ability.

I just checked, and in the current test version, F6 is ILS, F7 and F8 work as they have, and F9 is tower view. In other words, we're back to the old-style assignments with split ILS and Tower. The Captain did good on that one.
EDIT: Also F7/F8 cycle between the two styles of exterior view, making having both keys for that purpose a little redundant anyway.

Very glad the viewpoints are back to what they were prior to version 2015.

Hi! I make average, undesirable, boring grey maps for YS Flight!

Check out my YSFS videos on my Youtube channel!
-----------------------
Avatar: Pratt and Whitney JT8D-219
-----------------------
My two cents:
Most over-used phrase of 2020: "New normal". Can we stop with that already? Pandemics do not last forever, and things will eventually go back to normal, just like they always were. You're welcome!

I just checked, and in the current test version, F6 is ILS, F7 and F8 work as they have, and F9 is tower view. In other words, we're back to the old-style assignments with split ILS and Tower.
...
EDIT: Also F7/F8 cycle between the two styles of exterior view, making having both keys for that purpose a little redundant anyway.

Strange, but on Linux by default F6 is ILS, F8 is tower view, and F7 cycle between the two styles of exterior view.

@u2fly
Well, of course. I didn't think of that. Well, then, that explains that. Actually, I like that because now I can set F8 as tower view and F9 to switch between aircraft targets in tower view, which I think was how it was in the good old days.

@Turbofan
Frame rates are horrible for me in the stock Hawaii map on all versions. I get 40fps on my Hawaii map, but only 10-20 in the stock map at max graphics settings (Ctrl > 3). I don't want to ask questions.
EDIT: I installed my Hawaii map on the test version and I get 8-10 fps parked at HNL terminal.

I think this time I really fixed the magnetic heading and true heading consistency. By the way, I made the sign back to the previous. (In YSFLIGHT West is positive.)

ARTCC was not giving higher than 10000ft, which was awkward for a long cross country in a jet airplane. Now it gives up to the altitude specified in the aircraft data (Actually, the descending instruction was supposed to be given +6000, +3000, and then +1500 of the destination airport, but for some reason the current ATC skips +3000. I'm looking into the problem.)

I am an accountant working full-time (and some). I'm not here as often as I would like to be. Send a message if you need me. There are a few people in the community who can get in contact with me urgently if you need - don't be afraid to ask. I just don't check here as frequently as I used to. Sorry!

Here's one news. I was porting my libraries to Android. Hopefully I can talk more about mobile programming in the spring semester course. YSFLIGHT kernel runs on Android now. It's not quite playable, but I am thinking to make a YSFLIGHT player for running demos and re-playing what you record in a PC. I set my goals of the summer as:

OpenGL and OpenGL ES will be unavailable in macOS and iOS in the future OS versions. I was somewhat expecting it when Apple announced Metal. At the same time, I was hoping Apple to maintain relatively higher-level and standard graphics APIs. The expectation was shattered into pieces by this announcement.

Microsoft tried to drop OpenGL in Windows Vista once. Then developers around the world criticized the decision, and Microsoft withdrew the idea. OpenGL is, although officially up to version 1.1, still supported as a part of Win32 API. In Universal Windows Platform Microsoft implemented OpenGL ES 2.0 on top of Direct X and therefore is still part of the Windows API. But, probably Apple won't listen.

At least OpenGL should be available for a while, there is a possibility that YSFLIGHT is not available for Mac and development for iOS suspended at least for a short time.

I'm looking into Vulkan API by the way. One of the big problems of current programming is, in my view, that the graphics API has too much influence on the program and data structures. I see a lot of "to extract the best performance from GPU" while I read through Vulkan documentations and tutorials. Tell you what I want to say to them? "Shut the mouth up." I am not competing a Hollywood movie. I won't need the maximum performance from GPU. I rather want to know cleaner and maintainable way. I personally believe correctness and maintainability is more important than performance.

P.S.: If anybody know actual Soji Yamakawa e-mail (because [email protected] look like outdated), please, tell me it via PM! I must tell him about few bugs that should be fixed before release YSFLIGHT 2018.

Soji wrote:
I'm looking into Vulkan API by the way. One of the big problems of current programming is, in my view, that the graphics API has too much influence on the program and data structures. I see a lot of "to extract the best performance from GPU" while I read through Vulkan documentations and tutorials. Tell you what I want to say to them? "Shut the mouth up." I am not competing a Hollywood movie. I won't need the maximum performance from GPU. I rather want to know cleaner and maintainable way. I personally believe correctness and maintainability is more important than performance.

I have no words, for once I am speechless. And it took me this long to catch it.